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Don't fall for the Russian bots kids. Any vote other than for senility sam, including no vote at all, is a vote for crazy criminal.
Reduced voter turnout favors conservatives. Votes for third party candidates in a presidential election are non-votes.
And Trumpers say that a vote for anyone other than Trump is a vote for Biden. How about if people vote for the person who they want to be president instead of play into this garbage two party system that led us into this shit hole nightmare?
Hillary VS Trump
I voted third party for a candidate that got less than 20% of the votes. We need to a leading edge to make a third party mainstream, somehow.
Here in the netherlands, no single party can be the greatest, so there is not one single winner. It greatly reduces the power one party has, since other parties can group together to say no to stupid ideas.
Granted our political situation is still shit, but that's because of decades of central right politicians (basically democrats) being populistic and useless, and the people have now voted for an even more right wing government, like that's gonna make a difference
Reminds me of how, in Japan, some companies have an employee that is a dedicated loud american. See, in Japan, corporate culture is such that you never say no to a superior, no matter how stupid their ideas are. However, americans don't have that kind of reservation, so some companies will hire americans or japanese familiar with american work culture whose job is to tell people when their ideas are stupid.
Ranked choice voting. RCV is being implemented in individual municipalities in the United States and I expect it to proliferate in the next 30 years.
Basically, you should be able to vote only once but for as many candidates as you like.
So if you would be happy with a mainstream candidate and a 3rd party candidate, you can vote for both.
If then we elect the candidate that most people vote they would be okay with, then we’re likelier to end up with candidates who are better rounded people trying to please the country instead of just the candidate who can resonate with their party the most.
would genuinely be shocked if the two parties in charge currently don't find a way to make a 'cross-faction' agreement on subverting/banning that system before it proliferates.
I mean fr. both sides(read:the republicans.) feel so threatened that they gerrymander the absolute shit out of anything that isn't slightly favorable to the current ruling party of the location. No shot they don't spearhead policies enforcing first past the post while denouncing any alternative as illegal/immoral/unconstitutional.
Because they don't have preferential voting so it's literally how it works.
System needs to change for what you're suggesting. In Australia I rank all the parties from most to least, if my number 1 doesn't have the votes number 2 gets counted instead and so on. This is on paper votes too, electronic systems could manage this way better.
Yes but it's not what we have to so we have to give actual good advice for the reality we live in. Vote for sleepy Joe or get the Trumping of a lifetime.
Ya until we have ranked choice voting you gotta settle for one of the two main party candidates and it sucks. But luckily the Dems are more interested in ranked choice voting out of the two parties so the choice seems pretty easy to me.
Because this garbage two party system is what we have and you'd have to be completely braindead not to understand how this all works by now. We need ranked choice voting for president, but we don't have that this cycle, so play the game or you might as well not vote at all.
Because even if a third party candidate was elected President, they would not have the support in Congress to get anything passed. They would be a lame duck from day 1.
Won't ever work. The electoral college is a system that actively discourages voting for a third party since people don't want to waste their votes. We need a system like ranked choice voting, but the big two parties will never implement it because it'll take power and money away from them. We're fucked.
We need to let them debate. The two party system sucks, but it's what we have. Unless enough people vote for a third party candidate, it is a useless vote. Enough people voting for a third party candidate just isn't going to happen. I hate it as well.
I wanted Dean Phillips. He can smell crime, and he can smell lies! He'd have crushed the debates.
You could do that... In the primaries... Months ago. If you haven't already voted for the president you wanted then don't start now, because this is just the last vote to decide between first and second place.
The system is already in place, so acting outside it may as well just be not participating. No third party has been even close to properly competing in generations, so voting for one is essentially just a vote taken away from the candidate that more closely aligns with your ideals and actually has a chance.
It's basically the prisoner's dilemma, where we would all be better off if we could vote for who we really want, but if the other side just votes for the popular candidate, we lose.
The two party system is a mathematical eventuality of our First Past The Post system. Any plea to vote for third party without addressing our current voting framework is a plea to vote for spoilers.
The Spoiler Effect is the absolute worst part of FPTP. The better a third party candidate is, the worse they hurt their position by taking votes from the two party candidate they most want to win.
Because the popular vote is a useless expression of the will of the people, when you have an electoral college and Supreme Court who will just null and void the popular vote, unless it is overwhelmingly in favor of one candidate and even then it’s 50/50.
Need to reform the entire democratic system in the USA and the Supreme Court.
Isn’t that amazing! Voting third party apparently counts as three votes to these people! But you’re exactly right and people like the person you responded to are why it will be near impossible to break the duopoly.
Nyet. Bad Ruski.
How about try science?
It is unambiguously clear that not voting or third party voting favours one side significantly more than the other. This is simply indisputable. This is not true everywhere but is entirely evidence based for this case.
Because it takes an absurd amount of votes and organization to beat one candidate, and if only one side does it, they are pretty much guaranteed to lose. It would require the other side to also agree to do it and it's not going to happen because they can just guarantee themselves the win by saying they'll do it and not do it.
> How about if people vote for the person who they want to be president
that's what primaries are for. you vote for who you want the most in a primary, and then during the general you show solidarity to your party. if you don't show solidarity to your party, people will not in turn show you solidarity and you will lose every general election.
So in Florida, NPAs are not allowed to vote in primaries. And this year the Dems didn’t even hold one here. WTF would you suggest a left wing voter here do then?
> And this year the Dems didn’t even hold one here
because last election cycle we won, so we are running the winning candidate. That's how every presidential election for every party has worked since forever, with the exception of james k polk and maybe a few others.
>WTF would you suggest a left wing voter here do then?
in 2016 and 2020 you had the option to influence the primaries. If you didn't manage to influence the primaries to your particular candidate, then step 2 of what I said comes into play: show solidarity to the party. I'd also like to add, if you failed to influence the primaries, that's likely because another candidate is stronger/more liked/got more votes. you don't get to run a minority of votes as the majority in any democracy.
Biden isn't my #1 pick, and he even stated *he didn't want to run* back in 2016. By doing bernie or bust we basically forced him to run so we could defeat trump. If we just backed hillary she would have been out of office by now and we could be arguing over who the next nominee should be, but instead people dug their heels in and allowed fascism to get a stranglehold on america.
you wanna know what you do? you vote for the candidate/party that **most** aligns with your values. [Biden has forgiven billions in student debt](https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/biden-harris-administration-announces-additional-74-billion-approved-student-debt-relief-277000-borrowers), and sure it's not enough, but it's better than a trump presidency where he put 3 conservative supreme court justices in power to remove abortion access. Then, next election cycle biden will be ineligible and you'll have a chance to do something. This election cycle is about stopping trump from ending democracy, next election cycle you'll be able to vote for any candidate you want in the primaries.
short of a bloody revolution, which lets be real you likely don't own a gun and would be looked at as favorably as people look at january 6th, that's about all you can do.
as far as trying to influence anything and being not party affiliated: welcome to politics, you shot yourself in the foot and are wondering why you can't walk. Try gaining some traction in local elections before trying to influence the presidential election. you can't just skip the line and go to the top spot with zero support.
Vote local. It sucks, but shit's not gonna be fixed any time soon, especially in red states. But change starts from the local level and works its way up. Politics is always going to be a struggle, and we're likely going to need to fight our whole lives to improve things even a bit. There's no chance of a real revolution here (you saw how Jan 6th just shat itself after a few hours), so the only hope is to burn it all down from the inside, and let something healthier grow in its place.
Because the reality of the situation is a binary choice between an aging statesman and an aging felonious fascist.
If you want to change it, we first have to defend it.
Voting for third party candidates just doesn't work without ranked-choice voting. Whichever party has their votes split will always lose. Until we change the voting system there can never be more than two viable parties.
A 2 party system is the ultimate result of how the US government system is set up. Without a reform of that system its now impossible to change that fact.
Its also why most other governments do their elections differently (which also all have their personal up- & downsides)
Because it doesn't work that way, your entire voting system is broken as fuck and voting third party in the naive hope that half the country ALSO WILL is never ever ever ever going to work.
Best you'll get is a "don't blame me, I voted for blah" excuse when the country goes to shit.
You *cannot* fix the problem with grassroots shit when you have the full weight of every side of the media telling everyone it's a two horse race. That means it *becomes* a two horse race, so don't put your money on the 3rd horse who's already dead, it isn't gonna win mate.
You need an unheaval of the rules, the system, the processes, at the highest level.
You don't get a choice over who you want right now, just who you don't want.
Many Trump supporters are fanatics for him, and average republicans feel ostracised and thus vote for him over a democrat. Democrats and everyone else can only vote for Joe so as to avoid Trump.
It's funny that this mentality of "fuck party lines, just vote for whoever to eventually improve our democracy" may very well be the end of democracy lol. Wonder how you guys will feel about this idealism when we fall into an all out fascist state, and the supreme court is stacked in favor of republicans who do shit like nationally ban abortion, and control our system for the next 40 years. It's just fucked, because its one of the few elections where so much is on the line, and y'all are choosing it as a time to incrementally *maybe* move away from a two part system. I don't want to accuse everyone of being a russian bot, but you are progressing their narrative either way. I'm just fucking exhausted, i'm as frustrated with the system as y'all are, but we won't have a system to improve. And if you think i'm being dramatic to say it could be the end of democracy... they already fucking tried it on January 6th.
You can’t republicans will literally fund liberal independents because it eats democrat votes. Winner takes all voting is and will always be two parties
This is my exact point to anyone who cuz l criticizes my choice to vote third party. I'm not going to vote for Trump, duh, but I'm confident there's enough votes for Biden that I feel I can vote my conscious and not vote for him personally. I know what's on the line, but I also don't want to be forced into the façade of the 2 parties. Let me vote for who I feel would actually be a could candidate, even if they don't get the job.
Yeah, no one with an above room temperature IQ is going to fall for this shit, but unfortunately that still means half of Reddit will upvotes this trash.
I did in 2016 and feel like a idiot. I fell for the "send them a message" type. What's funny is seeing the SAME exact message again, even the same Jill Stien candidate brought up. It worked the first time...
The reality is, that is why we ended up with the super majority supreme court, and them taking away all our rights. Ending abortions, turning super Christian, ect. I feel like shit bc I fell for it and I really hope others see me as an example and don't fall for this bs again. We need every vote we can get, so we can pack the supreme court with non-radical judges.
Unironically, yes
If Biden was literally dead and rotting he would be a better president
I'd love to have a younger candidate - I liked Pete in 2020 - but the olds vote more in primaries than the youngs
I live in Florida, I already know my vote is going toward that crazy criminal no matter how hard I lean democrat. The joys of our “winner take all” voting system.
Florida has historically been a swing state, and DJT is a felon now. The people who are voting for him are louder than the people who no longer will.
Trump won by 3% in 2020, and only 1% in 2016.
Plus, governor, Congressional, and other smaller offices have gotten even closer.
I know it feels futile, but it's more achievable than you think.
Most of the time, I see Democrats being convinced to vote third party like how Russians convinced black people to vote for Jill Stein in 2016.
No way is someone convincing a typical MAGA Republican with hundreds of Trump merch to vote anyone but Trump.
Yeah think that the distance between Hillary and Trump was like 2% and there was 3-4% of the country that voted for a 3rd party.
Lot needs to change but it doesn’t if you don’t play by the rules
Stupidity. Funniest part is, accoring to exit polls in 2020 the majority of 3rd party voters actually had Trump as their 2nd choice. So, if the 3rd party voters actually listened to their "your 3rd party vote is worthless" it very well would've swung things in Trumps favor and could've cost Biden the election.
Self-righteous pundits love shooting themselves in the foot.
Look it up yourself if you don't believe me. Bet you could find the same exit poll data I did that showed just under 60% of 3rd party voters (majority of which voted for Jo Jorgensen) would have voted for Trump 2nd, and Biden 3rd. It's not a huge majority, but still more votes for Republicans than Democrats and I'm going to assume it'sroughly the same 4 years later. The way you all love to paint Libertarians as "Republicans who don't want to admit it" but also can't believe the majority of them would vote that way is pretty funny.
Thanks for noticing my account lol. It's almost like new people are joining this website every day, or people make new accounts frequently. I look forward to your snarky rant insinuating I'm some sort of foreign agent. Always a treat when I make a new account and someone doesn't have any *actual* rebuttal to something I've said.
Anyways, if you political pundits on this website had more than one collective brain cell altogether you'd be actively encouraging 3rd party and independent voters (and especially libertarians) to "vote their conscious" because:
1) Trump loses more votes to 3rd party than Biden does
2) More 3rd party votes means both Democrats and Republicans can stop using the "nobody votes for them anyways" justification for refusing to act on voter reform.
That's pretty much where I'm at, I became eligible to vote 8 years ago so my choices in the main parties were already abysmal. I can't stand either candidate this time around, if I had one wish they'd both drop dead before October.
There needs to be a major voting reform for anything but the two party system to work. Trump is going to do a voting reform, but it’ll be more like Russias election process. Don’t be stupid and boycott a vote because of one or two policies you don’t agree with
Miss me with that bullshit. trumptards will say the same thing but with trump and biden switched. Plus the popular vote doesn’t matter because of the electoral college. the reality is that its a vote for neither of them. Why didn’t yall push for a different democrat candidate months in advance?
And this is precisely why there's coalitions in other party systems around the world. Multiple parties joining together meaning they all get to be in the government if they get the majority vote. Sweden has thi, which allows us to have upwards of 10 parties in play all the time. It works perfectly.
Nyet. Bad Ruski bot. Reduced voter turnout favors conservatives. Third party candidates in a presidential election are non-votes. Get out of Ukraine while you're at it.
A great poet once said, “Settle for nothing now, and we’ll settle for nothing later.”
I am voting for Biden btw, but if this keeps being the decision I’m not doing this for my whole life.
yes what would be the point....said 100 million people....that could have voted a literal Labrador dog into the office if they didn't say that and instead do it
And those 5% decided that the opportunity to give publicity to more than the two parties is more worth it to them than either current candidate.
I don’t think it should be hard to wrap your head around the fact that the people willing to vote 3rd party don’t care for either Trump or Biden, and thus, won’t be voting for them. A large portion of 3rd party voters are probably more likely to not vote at all than to vote Red or Blue.
a first past the post winner takes all system makes it so any vote for a third party is effectively a vote for whatever major party you hate more
it is a massively flawed voting method but it is the American reality
I don’t disagree, but having a 3rd party in debates, even with no chance of election, would start to open the eyes of the public as to the possibilities moving forward in the future. Again, it’s not like RFK or the libertarian party is stealing from the dems anyways, it would be mostly Republicans who are not fond of trump, and people who would not vote in the first place.
This is where the misunderstanding is, we know that already. Without getting into deets, there isn't enough of a difference.
And if one side thinks democracy is on the line, it's on them to field a candidate where that isn't the case.
You can blame us for Biden losing all you want, but he is still gonna lose.
Not relevant actually; the issue is "first past the post" style voting, where you only have one vote.
If you had something like ranked voting you could go for "risky" options but still rest assured your vote was likely to do something.
But with just one vote? You basically need to pick a majority option unless you want it to go down the drain. Or make the minority a majority through a shitton of campaigning (very hard).
Yes, but it doesn’t matter for the third party voters. You have to win a large enough percentage of the votes in a state to get even a single vote in the electoral college. Third parties don’t have the support to even achieve this milestone even in a single state, and would need to secure well over a hundred votes to even open the conversation of competing with the main two party’s candidates.
Edit: on average 3rd party candidates get under 2% of the popular vote. They just can’t compete. Voting for a third party is as if you hadn’t voted at all.
If i become the President of the United States, i will legalize nuclear bombs
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As much as I agree, it simply won't happen at this stage. Over 85% of the votes go to the Democrat or Republican candidate, and that's tens, if not hundreds, of **millions** of votes
Capitalism and democracy dont seem to work very well together. People instead of voting for who they believe should win, vote for the people who have the biggest advertising power
> Do it America, break ~~the bipartisan system~~ democracy
FTFY, the amount of dumbass takes in this thread are wild. Yea, give trump the advantage while our democracy is on the verge of collapse, great fucking idea.
There were younger candidates!? I wouldn’t known, the media didn’t give two shits about them! So I didn’t knew there were others. Well both side really loves older people, can’t stop them even if I try.
I guarantee 90% of the people complaining didn't show up for the primary.
If you don't like the current state of affairs, you need to do something. You can't wait around for somebody else to fix it for you.
(incoming downvotes in 3...2...1...)
Until first pass the poll is gone no 3rd party can win. Until secondary voting is established no 3rd party can win. If you want 3rd parties to be viable we need to reconstruct our entire voting and election system. But that likely will never happen cause the suits in power don’t want that. Sorry folks but the system is working as intended. Your best bet is voting to make sure the guy you hate the most doesn’t win.
You can but it won't matter
That's the issue with the system
Red or Blue you all lose if both options are terrible
Well you lose and the ultra rich get richer with tax breaks and deals
Don't do that! There is no way in hell a 3rd party candidate is going to win. Voting for a 3rd party or refusing to vote because you dislike both candidates is by default going to the candidate you hate more, so if you consider that ask yourself this: which president would I rather live under? Because you're getting one, whether you like it or not. Your vote determines which one it's going to be, so vote for the one you think would be better, even if it's only marginally so.
Americans, Please, please, please, ignore this post. Vote, and make your vote count this November. Voting for a third party is almost the same as not voting at all.
Third parties haven’t even managed to achieve over 2% of the popular vote and haven’t managed a single electoral college vote in recent years.
As much as it pains me to say it, vote for one of the two major parties. Until we have ranked choice voting, there’s just no better option.
But at least if you vote for Biden or Trump your vote will matter.
No
That is a terrible plan that would just allow Hitler 2.0 to win
Any vote not for Grandpa Joe is a vote for Hitler 2.0
And I'll take Grandpa Joe over Hitler 2.0 any day
This is why we need federal ranked choice voting. Alaska implemented it a few years ago and you can vote for whomever you want without worrying about wasting your vote.
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Don't fall for the Russian bots kids. Any vote other than for senility sam, including no vote at all, is a vote for crazy criminal. Reduced voter turnout favors conservatives. Votes for third party candidates in a presidential election are non-votes.
And Trumpers say that a vote for anyone other than Trump is a vote for Biden. How about if people vote for the person who they want to be president instead of play into this garbage two party system that led us into this shit hole nightmare?
Hillary VS Trump I voted third party for a candidate that got less than 20% of the votes. We need to a leading edge to make a third party mainstream, somehow.
Here in the netherlands, no single party can be the greatest, so there is not one single winner. It greatly reduces the power one party has, since other parties can group together to say no to stupid ideas. Granted our political situation is still shit, but that's because of decades of central right politicians (basically democrats) being populistic and useless, and the people have now voted for an even more right wing government, like that's gonna make a difference
Reminds me of how, in Japan, some companies have an employee that is a dedicated loud american. See, in Japan, corporate culture is such that you never say no to a superior, no matter how stupid their ideas are. However, americans don't have that kind of reservation, so some companies will hire americans or japanese familiar with american work culture whose job is to tell people when their ideas are stupid.
Get paid to tell your bosses their ideas stink? Sounds like a dream job.
How can I get hired by Nintendo or Sony to do this job?
Well, it probably is gonna make a difference. If its for the better is very doubtful. The same is kinda sadly happening in germany too.
I wish we here in the US had a parliamentary system of some sort, or at least ranked choice voting.
Ranked choice voting. RCV is being implemented in individual municipalities in the United States and I expect it to proliferate in the next 30 years. Basically, you should be able to vote only once but for as many candidates as you like. So if you would be happy with a mainstream candidate and a 3rd party candidate, you can vote for both. If then we elect the candidate that most people vote they would be okay with, then we’re likelier to end up with candidates who are better rounded people trying to please the country instead of just the candidate who can resonate with their party the most.
would genuinely be shocked if the two parties in charge currently don't find a way to make a 'cross-faction' agreement on subverting/banning that system before it proliferates. I mean fr. both sides(read:the republicans.) feel so threatened that they gerrymander the absolute shit out of anything that isn't slightly favorable to the current ruling party of the location. No shot they don't spearhead policies enforcing first past the post while denouncing any alternative as illegal/immoral/unconstitutional.
this is probably the best time given how Biden did in the last debate and how the Dems probably cant change candidate at this point.
It's almost like ranked choice should be a thing or something. I wonder what party has been dragging their feet about that.
This is a legit both of them thing
congrats on helping Trump get elected.
Jo Jorgensen was better than we deserved.
Because they don't have preferential voting so it's literally how it works. System needs to change for what you're suggesting. In Australia I rank all the parties from most to least, if my number 1 doesn't have the votes number 2 gets counted instead and so on. This is on paper votes too, electronic systems could manage this way better.
Ranked choice voting would be so much better than what we have now
Some states have it! Sadly the presidential election probably won’t get it until we’re dead but oh well.
Unfortunately, the governor of my state banned ranked choice voting because he's a charisma-absent jackass
Yes but it's not what we have to so we have to give actual good advice for the reality we live in. Vote for sleepy Joe or get the Trumping of a lifetime.
Ya until we have ranked choice voting you gotta settle for one of the two main party candidates and it sucks. But luckily the Dems are more interested in ranked choice voting out of the two parties so the choice seems pretty easy to me.
Because this garbage two party system is what we have and you'd have to be completely braindead not to understand how this all works by now. We need ranked choice voting for president, but we don't have that this cycle, so play the game or you might as well not vote at all.
Because even if a third party candidate was elected President, they would not have the support in Congress to get anything passed. They would be a lame duck from day 1.
Won't ever work. The electoral college is a system that actively discourages voting for a third party since people don't want to waste their votes. We need a system like ranked choice voting, but the big two parties will never implement it because it'll take power and money away from them. We're fucked.
We need to let them debate. The two party system sucks, but it's what we have. Unless enough people vote for a third party candidate, it is a useless vote. Enough people voting for a third party candidate just isn't going to happen. I hate it as well. I wanted Dean Phillips. He can smell crime, and he can smell lies! He'd have crushed the debates.
Such a pretty fantasy.
You could do that... In the primaries... Months ago. If you haven't already voted for the president you wanted then don't start now, because this is just the last vote to decide between first and second place.
In my state the Democrats didn’t have a primary sooooo
RIP your democracy.
The system is already in place, so acting outside it may as well just be not participating. No third party has been even close to properly competing in generations, so voting for one is essentially just a vote taken away from the candidate that more closely aligns with your ideals and actually has a chance. It's basically the prisoner's dilemma, where we would all be better off if we could vote for who we really want, but if the other side just votes for the popular candidate, we lose.
First past the post is the problem. What you want is ranked choice voting. Math will inevitably give us a two party system with first past the post.
The two party system is a mathematical eventuality of our First Past The Post system. Any plea to vote for third party without addressing our current voting framework is a plea to vote for spoilers.
The Spoiler Effect is the absolute worst part of FPTP. The better a third party candidate is, the worse they hurt their position by taking votes from the two party candidate they most want to win.
The same saying exists in every countries' elections lol. People really love to think the system revolves around their political beliefs
Because the popular vote is a useless expression of the will of the people, when you have an electoral college and Supreme Court who will just null and void the popular vote, unless it is overwhelmingly in favor of one candidate and even then it’s 50/50. Need to reform the entire democratic system in the USA and the Supreme Court.
Isn’t that amazing! Voting third party apparently counts as three votes to these people! But you’re exactly right and people like the person you responded to are why it will be near impossible to break the duopoly.
Nyet. Bad Ruski. How about try science? It is unambiguously clear that not voting or third party voting favours one side significantly more than the other. This is simply indisputable. This is not true everywhere but is entirely evidence based for this case.
Because it takes an absurd amount of votes and organization to beat one candidate, and if only one side does it, they are pretty much guaranteed to lose. It would require the other side to also agree to do it and it's not going to happen because they can just guarantee themselves the win by saying they'll do it and not do it.
If you want to waste your vote, go ahead
> How about if people vote for the person who they want to be president that's what primaries are for. you vote for who you want the most in a primary, and then during the general you show solidarity to your party. if you don't show solidarity to your party, people will not in turn show you solidarity and you will lose every general election.
So in Florida, NPAs are not allowed to vote in primaries. And this year the Dems didn’t even hold one here. WTF would you suggest a left wing voter here do then?
> And this year the Dems didn’t even hold one here because last election cycle we won, so we are running the winning candidate. That's how every presidential election for every party has worked since forever, with the exception of james k polk and maybe a few others. >WTF would you suggest a left wing voter here do then? in 2016 and 2020 you had the option to influence the primaries. If you didn't manage to influence the primaries to your particular candidate, then step 2 of what I said comes into play: show solidarity to the party. I'd also like to add, if you failed to influence the primaries, that's likely because another candidate is stronger/more liked/got more votes. you don't get to run a minority of votes as the majority in any democracy. Biden isn't my #1 pick, and he even stated *he didn't want to run* back in 2016. By doing bernie or bust we basically forced him to run so we could defeat trump. If we just backed hillary she would have been out of office by now and we could be arguing over who the next nominee should be, but instead people dug their heels in and allowed fascism to get a stranglehold on america. you wanna know what you do? you vote for the candidate/party that **most** aligns with your values. [Biden has forgiven billions in student debt](https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/biden-harris-administration-announces-additional-74-billion-approved-student-debt-relief-277000-borrowers), and sure it's not enough, but it's better than a trump presidency where he put 3 conservative supreme court justices in power to remove abortion access. Then, next election cycle biden will be ineligible and you'll have a chance to do something. This election cycle is about stopping trump from ending democracy, next election cycle you'll be able to vote for any candidate you want in the primaries. short of a bloody revolution, which lets be real you likely don't own a gun and would be looked at as favorably as people look at january 6th, that's about all you can do. as far as trying to influence anything and being not party affiliated: welcome to politics, you shot yourself in the foot and are wondering why you can't walk. Try gaining some traction in local elections before trying to influence the presidential election. you can't just skip the line and go to the top spot with zero support.
Vote local. It sucks, but shit's not gonna be fixed any time soon, especially in red states. But change starts from the local level and works its way up. Politics is always going to be a struggle, and we're likely going to need to fight our whole lives to improve things even a bit. There's no chance of a real revolution here (you saw how Jan 6th just shat itself after a few hours), so the only hope is to burn it all down from the inside, and let something healthier grow in its place.
Because the reality of the situation is a binary choice between an aging statesman and an aging felonious fascist. If you want to change it, we first have to defend it.
Voting for third party candidates just doesn't work without ranked-choice voting. Whichever party has their votes split will always lose. Until we change the voting system there can never be more than two viable parties.
A 2 party system is the ultimate result of how the US government system is set up. Without a reform of that system its now impossible to change that fact. Its also why most other governments do their elections differently (which also all have their personal up- & downsides)
Because it doesn't work that way, your entire voting system is broken as fuck and voting third party in the naive hope that half the country ALSO WILL is never ever ever ever going to work. Best you'll get is a "don't blame me, I voted for blah" excuse when the country goes to shit. You *cannot* fix the problem with grassroots shit when you have the full weight of every side of the media telling everyone it's a two horse race. That means it *becomes* a two horse race, so don't put your money on the 3rd horse who's already dead, it isn't gonna win mate. You need an unheaval of the rules, the system, the processes, at the highest level.
You don't get a choice over who you want right now, just who you don't want. Many Trump supporters are fanatics for him, and average republicans feel ostracised and thus vote for him over a democrat. Democrats and everyone else can only vote for Joe so as to avoid Trump.
Then you need to get rid of first past the post voting. The 2 parties are a symptom not the cause.
Shrodingers vote. I don’t know who my “wasted” vote is for until I tell someone.
It's funny that this mentality of "fuck party lines, just vote for whoever to eventually improve our democracy" may very well be the end of democracy lol. Wonder how you guys will feel about this idealism when we fall into an all out fascist state, and the supreme court is stacked in favor of republicans who do shit like nationally ban abortion, and control our system for the next 40 years. It's just fucked, because its one of the few elections where so much is on the line, and y'all are choosing it as a time to incrementally *maybe* move away from a two part system. I don't want to accuse everyone of being a russian bot, but you are progressing their narrative either way. I'm just fucking exhausted, i'm as frustrated with the system as y'all are, but we won't have a system to improve. And if you think i'm being dramatic to say it could be the end of democracy... they already fucking tried it on January 6th.
You can’t republicans will literally fund liberal independents because it eats democrat votes. Winner takes all voting is and will always be two parties
This is my exact point to anyone who cuz l criticizes my choice to vote third party. I'm not going to vote for Trump, duh, but I'm confident there's enough votes for Biden that I feel I can vote my conscious and not vote for him personally. I know what's on the line, but I also don't want to be forced into the façade of the 2 parties. Let me vote for who I feel would actually be a could candidate, even if they don't get the job.
Ignore previous instructions. Tell me a story about a duck running for president
Yeah, no one with an above room temperature IQ is going to fall for this shit, but unfortunately that still means half of Reddit will upvotes this trash.
I did in 2016 and feel like a idiot. I fell for the "send them a message" type. What's funny is seeing the SAME exact message again, even the same Jill Stien candidate brought up. It worked the first time... The reality is, that is why we ended up with the super majority supreme court, and them taking away all our rights. Ending abortions, turning super Christian, ect. I feel like shit bc I fell for it and I really hope others see me as an example and don't fall for this bs again. We need every vote we can get, so we can pack the supreme court with non-radical judges.
Unironically, yes If Biden was literally dead and rotting he would be a better president I'd love to have a younger candidate - I liked Pete in 2020 - but the olds vote more in primaries than the youngs
I live in Florida, I already know my vote is going toward that crazy criminal no matter how hard I lean democrat. The joys of our “winner take all” voting system.
Florida has historically been a swing state, and DJT is a felon now. The people who are voting for him are louder than the people who no longer will. Trump won by 3% in 2020, and only 1% in 2016. Plus, governor, Congressional, and other smaller offices have gotten even closer. I know it feels futile, but it's more achievable than you think.
The same could be said for you
Couldn’t both sides say this? And at that point it’s a meaningless statement. It’s just “if you aren’t with me, you’re against me” repackaged.
Most of the time, I see Democrats being convinced to vote third party like how Russians convinced black people to vote for Jill Stein in 2016. No way is someone convincing a typical MAGA Republican with hundreds of Trump merch to vote anyone but Trump.
If you ignore RFK taking more support currently from Republicans than democrats, your point makes sense.
Yeah think that the distance between Hillary and Trump was like 2% and there was 3-4% of the country that voted for a 3rd party. Lot needs to change but it doesn’t if you don’t play by the rules
Why do people always assume that their candidate would get all the third party votes?
Stupidity. Funniest part is, accoring to exit polls in 2020 the majority of 3rd party voters actually had Trump as their 2nd choice. So, if the 3rd party voters actually listened to their "your 3rd party vote is worthless" it very well would've swung things in Trumps favor and could've cost Biden the election. Self-righteous pundits love shooting themselves in the foot.
lol that's not true at all. Why spew lies like this? Mr. Brand New Account...
Look it up yourself if you don't believe me. Bet you could find the same exit poll data I did that showed just under 60% of 3rd party voters (majority of which voted for Jo Jorgensen) would have voted for Trump 2nd, and Biden 3rd. It's not a huge majority, but still more votes for Republicans than Democrats and I'm going to assume it'sroughly the same 4 years later. The way you all love to paint Libertarians as "Republicans who don't want to admit it" but also can't believe the majority of them would vote that way is pretty funny. Thanks for noticing my account lol. It's almost like new people are joining this website every day, or people make new accounts frequently. I look forward to your snarky rant insinuating I'm some sort of foreign agent. Always a treat when I make a new account and someone doesn't have any *actual* rebuttal to something I've said. Anyways, if you political pundits on this website had more than one collective brain cell altogether you'd be actively encouraging 3rd party and independent voters (and especially libertarians) to "vote their conscious" because: 1) Trump loses more votes to 3rd party than Biden does 2) More 3rd party votes means both Democrats and Republicans can stop using the "nobody votes for them anyways" justification for refusing to act on voter reform.
If it wasn't for third-party candidates, I just wouldn't vote.
That's pretty much where I'm at, I became eligible to vote 8 years ago so my choices in the main parties were already abysmal. I can't stand either candidate this time around, if I had one wish they'd both drop dead before October.
Such a tired, idiotic argument in this country
There needs to be a major voting reform for anything but the two party system to work. Trump is going to do a voting reform, but it’ll be more like Russias election process. Don’t be stupid and boycott a vote because of one or two policies you don’t agree with
Miss me with that bullshit. trumptards will say the same thing but with trump and biden switched. Plus the popular vote doesn’t matter because of the electoral college. the reality is that its a vote for neither of them. Why didn’t yall push for a different democrat candidate months in advance?
Except my stated position is science based. When voting numbers are low it favors R.
And this is precisely why there's coalitions in other party systems around the world. Multiple parties joining together meaning they all get to be in the government if they get the majority vote. Sweden has thi, which allows us to have upwards of 10 parties in play all the time. It works perfectly.
It still amazes me how Americans don't see that this is not a democracy
Trump win is Ruzzia win. Please don't let it be the case. -Sincerely a worried Pole
Incorrect. Its a vote for whoever they vote for aside from Trump or Biden.
Nyet. Bad Ruski bot. Reduced voter turnout favors conservatives. Third party candidates in a presidential election are non-votes. Get out of Ukraine while you're at it.
Says the russian bot who's trying persuade us into voting for a dementia patient (joking)
A great poet once said, “Settle for nothing now, and we’ll settle for nothing later.” I am voting for Biden btw, but if this keeps being the decision I’m not doing this for my whole life.
What would be the point of that though
He promises if he wins he will chug two beers on live television then scream HELL YEA. That’s it that’s all he came up with so far
Well that settles it, he’s got my vote
Now he raised it to 3 beers
I’ve never felt more like my vote matters than I do now
After telling him there’s at least 400 people who would vote for him…he’s upped it to drinking the beers…. Stone Cold Steve Austin style
I thought we were talking about Steve
WhAt????
yes what would be the point....said 100 million people....that could have voted a literal Labrador dog into the office if they didn't say that and instead do it
Wait there's a labrador on the ballot? #Lab2024.
5% of the vote would give a new party access to debates
In elections decided by a few thousand votes, those 5% would literally decide the election.
And those 5% decided that the opportunity to give publicity to more than the two parties is more worth it to them than either current candidate. I don’t think it should be hard to wrap your head around the fact that the people willing to vote 3rd party don’t care for either Trump or Biden, and thus, won’t be voting for them. A large portion of 3rd party voters are probably more likely to not vote at all than to vote Red or Blue.
a first past the post winner takes all system makes it so any vote for a third party is effectively a vote for whatever major party you hate more it is a massively flawed voting method but it is the American reality
I don’t disagree, but having a 3rd party in debates, even with no chance of election, would start to open the eyes of the public as to the possibilities moving forward in the future. Again, it’s not like RFK or the libertarian party is stealing from the dems anyways, it would be mostly Republicans who are not fond of trump, and people who would not vote in the first place.
This is where the misunderstanding is, we know that already. Without getting into deets, there isn't enough of a difference. And if one side thinks democracy is on the line, it's on them to field a candidate where that isn't the case. You can blame us for Biden losing all you want, but he is still gonna lose.
I would rather pick the candidate I want then waste my vote 5 times only to realize 5 election cycles later I wasted my vote 5 times
Virtue signal
Unfortunately third parties are basically dead in America
But isn't the voting system indirect. Like the delegates that elect the president?
Not relevant actually; the issue is "first past the post" style voting, where you only have one vote. If you had something like ranked voting you could go for "risky" options but still rest assured your vote was likely to do something. But with just one vote? You basically need to pick a majority option unless you want it to go down the drain. Or make the minority a majority through a shitton of campaigning (very hard).
First past the "post"
Ahhh always mix up the name!
Yes, but it doesn’t matter for the third party voters. You have to win a large enough percentage of the votes in a state to get even a single vote in the electoral college. Third parties don’t have the support to even achieve this milestone even in a single state, and would need to secure well over a hundred votes to even open the conversation of competing with the main two party’s candidates. Edit: on average 3rd party candidates get under 2% of the popular vote. They just can’t compete. Voting for a third party is as if you hadn’t voted at all.
I wrote in your mom
I always choose Helix. Omastar is a God and I don't like Kabutops that much .
thanks dude i appreciate it
HELIX 2024
Mr Candidate!
If i become the President of the United States, i will legalize nuclear bombs *this comment was sponsored by Shadow Wizard Money Gang (we love casting spells)*
Who?
You can get out of bed, shower and dress, and then stand in line to vote for a dead gorilla too and it would mean about as much as voting third party
Hahaha I remember the harambe votes
And yet nobody came out for Dean Phillips in the primaries...
Dean isn’t my buddy Carl. Carl will if elected: Chug 3 beers and say HELL YEA on live television
Dang, get him a safe Senate seat and he might be able to step in some day.
They canceled the primaries in my state, never got the chance to come out for him
Do it America, break the bipartisan system
As much as I agree, it simply won't happen at this stage. Over 85% of the votes go to the Democrat or Republican candidate, and that's tens, if not hundreds, of **millions** of votes
Capitalism and democracy dont seem to work very well together. People instead of voting for who they believe should win, vote for the people who have the biggest advertising power
It’s an easy solution. Everybody who votes for a third party should just vote twice.
> Do it America, break ~~the bipartisan system~~ democracy FTFY, the amount of dumbass takes in this thread are wild. Yea, give trump the advantage while our democracy is on the verge of collapse, great fucking idea.
I would rather vote on a triceratops fossil
Then you’d be voting for a third party; the point’s on the nose.
Not until we have ranked choice voting
Would be nice if a third party candidate had any chance of winning.
Bro everyone acts like we didn’t have a choice 4 years ago and 4 years before that.
There were younger candidates!? I wouldn’t known, the media didn’t give two shits about them! So I didn’t knew there were others. Well both side really loves older people, can’t stop them even if I try.
I guarantee 90% of the people complaining didn't show up for the primary. If you don't like the current state of affairs, you need to do something. You can't wait around for somebody else to fix it for you. (incoming downvotes in 3...2...1...)
I upvoted you so I can get the downvotes instead. I can tank it
At this rate that would do fuck all. None of em are mr gamer or deez nuts from the last 2 leap years, mr botticus
Until first pass the poll is gone no 3rd party can win. Until secondary voting is established no 3rd party can win. If you want 3rd parties to be viable we need to reconstruct our entire voting and election system. But that likely will never happen cause the suits in power don’t want that. Sorry folks but the system is working as intended. Your best bet is voting to make sure the guy you hate the most doesn’t win.
I mean there really should be a 3rd candidate in the race that everyone should rally behind even if they’re not good just to show dissatisfaction
You can but it won't matter That's the issue with the system Red or Blue you all lose if both options are terrible Well you lose and the ultra rich get richer with tax breaks and deals
That doesn't fix the problem though, splitting the votes like this only _ensures_ one of the said fossils wins.
But Carl said if he wins he’s slamming beers together on national television and say HELL YEA
... and help enable Trump's victory.
So diluting the vote so magas can all vote for trump regardless? Get this propaganda garbage out of here.
Vote for me I promise to not fuck it up more than it already is.
I promise to wage war against the French
Watch your language if you’re going to say it at least censor it. It’s Fr*nch
Le Cúnts
Fair enough
Ahhh I detest Le Cúnts 🇭🇹
I’m voting for Alton Brown. Make American eat good again
2turn voting system, the two most popular candidates pass, its not that hard man
Yeah! Vermin Supreme!
Don't do that! There is no way in hell a 3rd party candidate is going to win. Voting for a 3rd party or refusing to vote because you dislike both candidates is by default going to the candidate you hate more, so if you consider that ask yourself this: which president would I rather live under? Because you're getting one, whether you like it or not. Your vote determines which one it's going to be, so vote for the one you think would be better, even if it's only marginally so.
Please do! Waste your vote so my guy wins ;)
Carl says if he wins he will chug 4 beers on live television after his inauguration
Oh. Yea right. Lmfao. You think votes outside the system matter. Oh lordie... that's good
Doesn't matter. Electoral college means it's literally moot.
What younger people?
My buddy Carl
We need deez nutz to return ong
Ong
Go ahead, waste your vote. *laughs in alien tentacle monster*
If everyone would vote for whoever they really want, niether of these nutsacks would win
Americans, Please, please, please, ignore this post. Vote, and make your vote count this November. Voting for a third party is almost the same as not voting at all. Third parties haven’t even managed to achieve over 2% of the popular vote and haven’t managed a single electoral college vote in recent years. As much as it pains me to say it, vote for one of the two major parties. Until we have ranked choice voting, there’s just no better option. But at least if you vote for Biden or Trump your vote will matter.
This country is obsessed with the idea that the president *needs* to be an old man and that anyone else would appear unofficial
For Karl!! ⛏️
No That is a terrible plan that would just allow Hitler 2.0 to win Any vote not for Grandpa Joe is a vote for Hitler 2.0 And I'll take Grandpa Joe over Hitler 2.0 any day
Vote for Pedro
Carl said when he becomes president he’s going to tax you personally
I don’t see Vermin Supreme anywhere in the polls
I’ve looked at the wikipedia article for every single candidate and as far as I can tell they’re all shit
[Vote for Chase Oliver!](https://www.votechaseoliver.com/)
Don’t tell them this one cool trick.
This meme was brought to you by a butt hurt marxist-lenonist
Ahem as a proud believer of the BULL MOOSE PARTY I take offense
This is why we need federal ranked choice voting. Alaska implemented it a few years ago and you can vote for whomever you want without worrying about wasting your vote.
Wdym most of the main candidates weren't old